The study, conducted by Dr Demid Getik, explores how mental health is related to income make-up within couples by examining the link between annual income rises for women and the number of clinical mental health diagnoses over a set period of time.
The study finds that as more women take on the breadwinner role in the household, the number of mental health related incidences also increases.
As wives begin earning more than their husbands, the probability of receiving a mental health diagnosis increases by as much as 8% for all those observed in the study, but by as much as 11% for the men.
Oh for fucks sake. No wonder this study is ridiculous. It’s an economist trying to make inferences on mental health. The only actual data he had is a correlation in mental health diagnoses and women earning significantly* more. (Number not defined)
He has no evidence for causation. He does no work to get rid of confounding factors like toxic masculinity’s famous dislike of therapy. He just sees a rise in the pure number of diagnoses and says women earning more is bad for the mental health of both people in a marriage. He doesn’t even bother to check what the diagnoses are, or look for any kind of severity. For all we know the finding here could be that women who earn more and men who are willing to be with them seek counseling earlier than couples where the man makes more.
This is shit science.
Yep. The guy got a large publicly available dataset (or one his university had access to) and mined it for interesting results to get a publication.
Please Lord let me find a woman that makes the same as me and I’ll happily retire a Pinterest mom and support her career. I love my kid, my home, my time, my flexibility, optimizing systems with cart blanche…
Perhaps households where women earn more money are also made of people where the male partner feels more comfortable seeking mental health resources. Or perhaps they have better insurance and can afford it.
I would suggest that “Wives earning more than husbands” isn’t the issue so much as “Cost of living is outpacing household earnings and men have been conditioned through generations of patriarchy to believe this is a personal failing rather than a broad economic shift”.
If your wife is bringing in seven figures, I doubt the husband will lose much sleep. But if you’re looking at a $30k paycheck to your wife’s $40k paycheck, and you both acknowledge the total isn’t enough to live on, there’s a lot of anxiety to go around in that situation.
Agreed. I don’t think it’s about wives earning more than their husbands at all.
Was talking to a cute girl at a New Years Eve party, and it came out that while I made a nice amount for doing very little work, she made even more but had to do a lot of work. I went straight to daydreaming about being a stay-at-home Dad so hard I almost fell off my chair.
Dudes, more money means more money, why on earth would having more money upset you???
I’m willing to bet it’s selection bias. They have more time for therapy and openness to the idea. It’s one of those studies that just looks at the numbers at the top of everything. X couples got divorced, Y people sought counseling, etc.
The most they can say is there’s an increased correlation in seeking mental help.
more money is not the goal of a long term relationship or at least, ought not be. I hope this person had other attractive qualities in addition to freeing you from working.
Yes, the link is this:
When all the adults in the household have to work 40+ hours a week, plus commute, plus all the adulting…they get sad since this is fucking toxic.
Also no one has time for civics.
Also no one has time to parent, so the kids are sad too.
If we’re looking at mental health problems, lets look here first.
You missed manly man not manly enough and now sad too.
You’re right, patriarchal demands are toxic on men too and that’s where the stress comes from.
Could have said that instead of being dismissive about it though.
My wife easily does 80% or more of the housework. She makes less than half what I do. The thing is, she only works 40 hours or so a week compared to my 60 or so. I’m not glorifying my overwork, I hate that I work so much. I’m also out of town during the week days more than half the time.
I would be thrilled if she made more than me. We could hire a cleaning service and we would be so happy. This shit is insane and probably bad science.
It keeps coming up and ‘experts’ profess this occasionally. I’m too lazy to check the actual science, so I’ll never know.
I’ve experienced a man in my life being really fucking salty and super dickish about my successful career. It isn’t a husband or SO, but my stepfather. The man who, until recently, has been a great father figure.
I can’t talk about work around him without his mood immediately souring. Idk if he’s jealous that I have some disposable income and that I am making a little less than he is and I’m only 3 years into my career as opposed to his 25, but it’s really discouraging.
Finances are very tight for him and my mother and it’s almost entirely his fault because he is terrible with money. It’s really sad to see him act this way. According to my mom, he has bitched to my grandma (his mom) about me taking up horseback riding and doing things with my new friends because it can be expensive. My grandma yelled at him over it and said that me doing new things and socializing is very good and she supports it. Idk why he thinks my finances are his business either. Ugh. The man is so frustrating.
Sorry for ranting. Guess I really needed to get all that out lol.
Well I hope there was some catharsis to your comment! That sucks you’re being subjected to it. Good for grandma having your back!
Any chance this correlates with finally being able to afford mental health care?
This guy understands how the world works.
That was a great point. I was assuming it adds stress which exacerbated symptoms of mental health conditions that incentivized the couples to get diagnosed.
The study focused on heterosexual Swedish couples of working age who married in 2001 and whose individual incomes measured at just above or just below the equal earnings threshold.
I wouldn’t have thought mental health care was inaccessible due to cost in a country like Sweden.
It’s not free, but it’s not expensive either, max of around $250 a year for all healthcare. But mental health care in Sweden is abysmal, if you’re lucky they’ll give you 12 sessions with a psychologist who is apathetic to your issues and then let you go, because they seem to see it as something that once your sessions are done, should be fixed.
This in a country rife with social isolation, months of dark and cold, hobbies that are too expensive to do and a generally unhealthy society.
It’s not always free in scandinavialand. If you have a referral from a doctor due to a mental illness or the like, it’s probably covered. But if you seek therapy out if own initiative you probably have to pay out of pocket.
Source: As a scandinavian I looked into it once, but upon noticing the hourly rate I figured that it would probably cause more mental distress than it would solve.
Ah, thanks.
It’s not just monetary, it’s also time, and being willing to admit you have a problem and seek help. Some jobs will fire you if you admit to having substance abuse or mental health problems, like airline pilots. (Or even if they don’t outright fire you, it’ll still end your career.)
Fair. I also would have thought, though, that Sweden would have had stronger labor protection laws to protect people who are getting help from retaliatory firing.
It does, and employers are usually very good as supporting their employees with health issues.
With pilots, it’s not Sweden and firing, but EASA and medicals.
After the Germanwings crash, the only reasonable choice was obviously making it so that most mental health issues disqualify you from flying. It does wonders for reporting.
Admitting you need help can end your career, not just lose your current job.
Oh interesting. That’s unfortunate.
IDK who is downvoting, it really is.
Why is there an increase in mental health diagnoses recently?
Looks around at the state of the world. Tyranny on the rise; human right being violated across the globe; climate crisis set to boil humanity alive; tech companies funding dictators.
My hypothesis is that it is the fault of women.
It certainly doesn’t help that men and women are more adversarial than they have ever been. The cause may be just, but at the end of the day everyone is just lonely and miserable, and afraid of the other.
Society needs to normalize households women being successful.
My only problem with this personally is what if something terrible happens and the wife is no longer in the picture. Then, my house husband skills wouldn’t help me land a decent paying job.
Welcome to the reality of every stay at home mom ever
Seriously though, I’d be absolutely fucking fine if I was a househusband.
I wanna be a house husband so bad yo I’d be so good at it I can cook and clean good enough to please anyone’s grandma and I can manage a household like a pro
Lemme stop working lemme decorate a fucking great room and meal prep for my loved ones FUCK
Trad husband. Based
You can move in with me if you want lol. I hate cleaning and shit. But I’m a man and I don’t make 250k that’s for sure.
I’m already dating a man who swears he’s gonna get me a hot tub to be sexy in, but I still gotta work. What’s your offer?
No employment required but you gotta do the cleaning for me and my wife. Free room and board, and other reasonable expenses covered but we do live frugally, and you’d be expected to as well. You can fuck or decline to fuck whoever you want. No hottub though. We live in the city center and don’t have space for such things.
“How about I earn another $250k and we DINK our way across the globe?”
Go on…
It’s not just the men suffering from this.
Are you certain that’s how this actually works? Could it be that typical gender roles developed as they did because each of the sexes took on the roles they were suited for, and switching that up isn’t as simple as some would like to think?
Personally I’d suggest that men tend to be more competitive, and therefore are more suited to the work environment where you’re fighting against various external influences of indeterminate nature, while women tend to be more empathetic, and therefore are more suited to the home environment where seeking consensus and cohesion is more important.
Wtf.
Wtf is that this nonsense about the sexes being interchangeable has gone uncontested in popular culture for so long. Even when it’s suggested that behaving that way is leading to a rise in mental health issues people are completely unwilling to even discuss the possibility there is something else going on here.
Why is the idea that all of human history before now being completely wrong such an unquestionable truth today?
Bring your receipts.
Show your sources that for all human history things have been one specific way. Don’t forget to adjust for the fact that your education, media, socialization are all geared towards the current economic system and therefore are slanted to reinforce norms that feed that system.
Why is the idea that all of human history before now being completely wrong such an unquestionable truth today?
Because it’s not “all of human history” it’s at best “eurocentric,” a western belief system. There were and are many cultures that value women as leaders and not just relegated to the kitchen. It’s just “us westerners” that have this fucked up view of a womans “place.”
Well, I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. Patriarchy is a pretty dominant social structure across many different cultures, not just European. There are exceptions, yes, but it seems far more common than it should be if that was purely coincidental. Based on my reading, patriarchy is strongly associated with the rise of agriculture and with patrilocal marriage and may not have existed prior to those institutions, but early human history has a very scant level of evidence remaining, unfortunately.
However, the relatively low sexual dimorphism in humans does suggest that early human societies were fairly egalitarian with respect to the sexes.
Isn’t there the theory that agriculture basically pushed patriarchy because of several factors?
Just a quick glance into this article: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230525-how-did-patriarchy-actually-begin
gives some insights which do not sound too wrong. For example the article mentions the theory that the rise in property included the need for defense against others and you are better at this with more people. The article also theorizes that “social elites emerged as some people built up more property than others, driving men to want to make sure their wealth would pass onto their legitimate children”.
Very interesting article. I might need to check out the author’s book, it sounds right up my alley.
Another interesting fact is that as we’ve seen these agrarian and patrilocal traditions weaken under capitalism, we suddenly see a strong push for gender equality after thousands of years of consistent oppression. This also fits the pattern, although the number of dramatic changes to society in recent centuries make it difficult to pinpoint exact causes.
Man, blaming “patriarchy” bugs the hell out of me, because I’m from northern European backgrounds, and we’ve been perfectly fine with female leaders basically forever. Our societies are an equal partnership between men and women, each doing what they’re best suited for, but neither dominating the relationship. I know there are fucked up cultures out there which are run by men dominating women, but can we please stop trying to erase the fact that it IS actually possible to get along?
LOL you’re one of the dudes who would be butthurt by the woman making more money
Ah yes, of course the housewife and the kitchen are an example of co-evolution.
Yes. I’m certain you’re a fucking idiot.
Good lord…
🚨multiple counts of transphobia detected in modlog, opinion invalid🚨
Thanks for shortcutting my block decision. 👍🏻
Neckbeard incel lol
Are you fucking stupid, or did you just wake up from a 100 year nap?
Rumpelstiltskin over here with opinions
ROFL
or, we could NOT predefine roles for people based on sex, and let individuals make decisions for themselves. Maybe not everyone is the same, imagine that!
Society couldn’t even get which gender wears pants/skirts right, I wouldn’t trust it on this.
As a Celt, your assertion confuses me.
I dunno, maybe on average.
When I was unemployed for a bit between contracts, my wife made all the income and I paid for what I could with my emergency fund. (Everything worked out fine)
I did basically all the chores, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. in addition to looking for work and working on “side-hustles”.
She wishes that she made enough money so that we could hit that dual-income level alone and I could become a house husband for her, lmao
And hey, if she could make enough money on her own, I’d love that! Lol
I think one issue with this viewpoint is you are assuming that work is intrinsically competitive, but that’s a result of male-dominated workplaces, not only a cause, though it may be self-reinforcing to an extent. There’s no reason workplaces can’t be more focused on consensus and cohesion. I’ve worked in several female-dominated organizations and they tend to be this way and they work just fine.
you are assuming that work is intrinsically competitive
That assumption is based upon the idea that working with a broad range of strangers means you can’t trust people specifically, so you have to work towards your goals. From that you will end up cooperating naturally with anyone who shares your goals, but you will also have to compete fiercely with those who have goals antagonistic to your own.
Knowing Lemmy, this comment is probably highly downvoted, but this is the likely explanation for it in my opinion as well.
This is really sad, tbh.
I personally would be freaking stoked. Would love to be a stay at home hubs, too.
It’s genuinely upsetting. The option to be a house wife/husband is becoming rarer. Everyone needs to work to provide enough for the household. House hubbies are lucky men.
Dude, me too, and I would kill at it.
Sadly, based on skills and the job market where we’re at, I can make more working.
Same. My skillset and interests align with being a house spouse, not making money. Single tho, and trying to make a beautiful home while working full time leads to many compromises
That’s what we found out.
My wife enjoys her work, finds it rewarding, etc. etc. and has never been really content as a homemaker. My job is alright, but I don’t feel any real passion for it, and I don’t need a work atmosphere or to be around a lot of people to stay engaged. I’m happy just keeping things organized and running smoothly in my own little corner of the world.
I make just a little less than we need for her to stay home, and she makes peanuts in comparison.
It really hacks me off. She works in education, what she does is far more important to the well-being of society than what I do. If our paychecks were reversed, and they honestly should be reversed, I’d be happy to stay home or work part time but it’s just not financially feasible.
oh yeah but I would not want that much pressure on my wife. Would want to make enough to at least get us by in a pinch.
Maybe this happens because the woman who earns more often emasculates her husband with snide remarks or jabs. Unlike the other way round where men are expected to earn more than their spouse otherwise they’re “less of a man”.
Maybe that’s contributing to the higher mental health issues.
i want my wife to earn more than me; she sure deserves it. she has a higher education and a job that actually matters to humanity. i have a desk job that makes computers go beep. its absurd how low her pay is :(
I’m in the same boat. I happen to earn more, but not really through my own education/merit/worth to society - just by virtue of the industry I work in and that I can also make computers go beep sometimes.
For a while, my wife did earn more than me, and that was fine. My job was easier, so I did more housework and took some of the stress off her.
Imo it’s wild to be upset that you are earning more as a team just because the person earning the most on the team is a woman. Patriarchy is a hell of a drug
Wow, you and me have the same life it seems. My wife went to college, has her masters and 1 year shy of getting her PHD. and is a special education teacher making nothing crazy. I have no school and I am an IT admin and recently moved to networking and make only slightly more. She thinks I will be someone who cares that she makes more than me, and I say why? Why would I want us to have a harder time than we already have now? Please make more, make a lot more if you can! We only benefit more with peace of mind, I can care less who it comes from.
Some decent news is they work in steps so every year they are guaranteed a raise and she’s around step 15 of 20 which after looking at the steps the first 13 are awful and now the next 5 years are huge. Like so big that each year is basically the equivalent of the past 13 combined. So, considering how stagnant I’ve been, she will pass me by a decent amount within the next 5 years.
For men, mental health issues that arose as female earnings increased were more likely to be related to substance-related concerns, whereas women were more likely to experience neurotic and stress-related disorders.
I’m not convinced of a causative relationship here (well, at least for the men, it makes sense that working more increases stress on the women’s side). It’s possible that the woman became the higher earner because of the man’s existing substance abuse problem, and/or that the woman becoming a higher earner allowed the man to seek help for the problem.
It’s also possible that the substance abuse problem developed after the woman became the higher earner, though I’m not sure why that would happen.
Yeah correlation is not causation.
These couples might both work more than the control cohort. Any number of explanations.
They can afford it now?
Unlikely in Sweden
It’s possible that the woman became the higher earner because of the man’s existing substance abuse problem, and/or that the woman becoming a higher earner allowed the man to seek help for the problem.
It’s also possible that the substance abuse problem developed after the woman became the higher earner, though I’m not sure why that would happen.
I think those are two fair bits of speculation that warrant further study and/or reporting.
It’s also possible that the men were self medicating instead of seeking help for underlying conditions.
Remember, this is diagnoses. My guess is that its a “owning a horse make you healthier” thing again.
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